SERVQUAL

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SERVQUAL or RATER is a service quality framework. SERVQUAL was developed in the mid eighties by Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry.

[edit] Concept

SERVQUAL was originally measured on 10 aspects of service quality: reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding or knowing the customer and tangibles. It measures the gap between customer expectations and experience.

By the early nineties the authors had refined the model to the useful acronym RATER:

Reliability
Assurance
Tangibles
Empathy, and
Responsiveness

SERVQUAL has its detractors and is considered overly complex, subjective and statistically unreliable. The simplified RATER model however is a simple and useful model for qualitatively exploring and assessing customers' service experiences and has been used widely by service delivery organizations. It is an efficient model in helping an organization shape up its efforts in bridging the gap between perceived and expected service.

[edit] Criticisms

Francis Buttle critiques Servqual in the article "SERVQUAL; review, critique, research agenda" and comes up with these three key criticisms: Perception and expectation are very subjective, and thus not good measures, that there isn’t necessarily a direct relationship between service and quality, and the measures in the model are not necessarily the right things to be measuring.

Luis Lages and Joana Fernandes in the article "The SERPVAL scale: A multi-item instrument for measuring service personal values" suggests that consumer final decisions are taken at a higher-level of abstraction. Similarly to the SERVQUAL scale, the Service Personal Values (SERPVAL) scale is also multi-dimensional. It presents three dimensions of service value to 1) peaceful life, 2) social recognition, and 3) social integration. All three SERPVAL dimensions are associated with consumer satisfaction. While service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent.

[edit] References

Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry, "Delivering Quality Service; Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations," Free Press, 1990.
Francis Buttle, "SERVQUAL; review, critique, research agenda," European Journal of Marketing, MCB Press, Vol.30, Issue 1, pp.8-31
Luis Filipe Lages & Joana Cosme Fernandes, 2005, "The SERPVAL scale: A multi-item instrument for measuring service personal values", Journal of Business Research, Vol.58, Issue 11, pp. 1562-1572.